"Theatrical Impresario" John Hollingshead Hand Written Note Mounted For Sale

Up for sale "Theatrical Impresario" John Hollingshead Hand Written Note Mounted Dated 1874. 

– 9 October 1904) was an English theatrical impresario, journalist and writer during the latter half of

the 19th century. After a journalism career, Hollingshead managed the Alhambra Theatre and was later the first manager of

the Gaiety Theatre, London. Hollingshead also wrote several books

during his life. An innovative producer, Hollingshead brought Gilbert and Sullivan together in 1871 to produce their

first joint work, a musical extravaganza called Thespis. Among other theatrical works that he produced, he

mounted a long series of popular Victorian burlesques at

the Gaiety, engaging Meyer Lutz to compose

original scores for them. He also produced operettas, plays and other works.

These productions made stars of Nellie Farren and several others. At the Gaiety, in 1878,

Hollingshead was the first theatre manager to light his auditorium with

electric lights. Hollingshead was born in Hoxton, Greater London, the son of Henry Randall Hollingshead.

He was educated at Homerton. He first worked as a bookkeeper for a soft

goods company in London in the early 1850s while publishing political essays on

finance and social reform. He soon entered into a partnership as a clothing

merchant. During this time, Hollingshead and his friend Moy Thomas began publishing a penny paper called The

Mail that proved unsuccessful. In 1854, he decided to close his

clothing business and begin working as a writer full-time. By 1855,

Hollingshead was married with two children. He died in London on 9 October 1904 at the age

of 77. Hollingshead started his journalism career in 1854 under the tutelage

of Charles and then under W. M. Thackeray at Cornhill Magazine. In 1861, he acted as the

"special correspondent" for The Morning Post during

the London famine. He also wrote essays, short stories and dramatic criticism. Beginning in 1864, and for several years

thereafter, he contributed to Punch magazine, mostly writing on political topics related

to social reform. He advocated the principles of Mill and Jeremy Bentham. One of his best-known essays was an 1857 piece

called "The City of Unlimited Paper", which became famous during the

monetary panic of 1857. In the 1860s he was on the staff of Good Words under Norman Macleod as editor. Hollingshead wrote a number of

books from the 1850s into the 1860s, including On the canal: a

narrative of a voyage from London to Birmingham (1858); Under

Bow Bells (1860, a collection of some of his essays), Rubbing the Gilt

Off (a collection of his early political essays (1860) Odd Journeys (1860, a collection of

travels), Ways of Life (1861, a volume of humorous papers), Ragged

London (1861, a collection of his reports for the Morning Other publications included a collection of humorous

stories entitled Rough Diamonds and two volumes of

miscellaneous essays called Today. He also wrote plays. In the

1880s, Hollingshead returned to writing, producing books mostly about the

theatre, including Plain English (1880), in the 1890s, he wrote a number of memoirs and more books about the

theatres that he had managed. In 1892, he also published The Story of

Leicester Square, tracing the history, geography and architecture of the

London neighbourhood from earliest times through the date of publication. His

memoir entitled My Lifetime, published in 1895, explores his life

and career through that date. In 1868, Hollingshead took over the Gaiety

Theatre, which had been a large music hall. The auditorium was rebuilt and, under

Hollingshead, it became a venue primarily for musical burlesque, variety,

continental operetta, including several operettas

by Jacques Offenbach, and

light comedy, under Hollingshead's management, from 1868 to 1886. The theatre

opened on 21 December 1868, with the successful Robert the Devil,

by W. S. Gilbert, a burlesque

of the opera Robert le Diable. Gilbert also wrote An Old Score for the theatre in 1869. Another early

production was Alfred Thompson's Columbus!,

or the Original Pitch in a Merry Key (1869). Nellie Farren starred in both Columbus and Robert

the Devil. She continued as "Principal Boy" at the Gaiety for the

next 25 years, first under Hollingshead and then under George Edwardes. Other Gaiety stalwarts were Edward Terry, Kate Vaughan and Fred Leslie. The theatre's music director, Meyer Lutz, composed or arranged the music for many of its

most successful burlesques. In 1870, Henry James Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling starred a

young Henry Irving. This was the last play that theatre buff Charles Dickens saw before his death. Other pieces at Hollingshead's

Gaiety in 1870 included Dot (Dion Boucicault's version of The Cricket on the Hearth);

and The Princess of Trebizonde, based on the Jacques Offenbach operetta (1870). Thespis, the first collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, played at the theatre in 1871, with Farren as Mercury

and J. L. Toole in the title role. Offenbach's Les deux aveugles played in 1872, starring Fred Sullivan. This was followed by such works Trollope and Charles Reade; Antony

and Cleopatra (1873); and The Battle of Life, (based

on Charles Dickens's Christmas story of that title). Two other Dion Boucicault plays produced by Hollingshead's company in the early

1870s were Night and Morning and Led Astray.

Boucicault's Don Caesar de Bazan was travestied in

Byron's Little Don Caesar de Bazan.